Outside town, there is a massive pit called Tren'tar, but locally, its referred to as The Scrape. This is where all the waste generated by a town ends up, tossed over the edge. That's the idea though, for a hundred years, the giant heap of trash grows smaller, some say at the bottom there's a giant machine that burns it, others guess that it's continually slipping into an even larger cave system.
In the last few weeks however, the pile has stopped shrinking.
This is a lower-level adventure, intended for use with Old School Essentials.
The adventures have already agreed to investigate, and are standing on top of the trash mound. They notice the stink first, followed by just how unstable a pile of garbage is to stand on. Looking down and around the heap, the PCs can see shadowy areas where the base of the mound meets the gorge walls. If they brave a closer look, the team will discover a locked stone door.
Spoilers!
The trash heap and complex below were originally built by Gnomes (a hundred years ago) to solve the mounting trash problem. At the bottom of the heap is a large chamber where trash continually falls and is consumed and dissolved by a dozen Gelatinous Cubes. A month ago, something happened that lured the cubes away from their station, living beings infiltrated the complex. The cubes, on instinct, opt to pursue the fresh meat rather than subsist on trash.
A local wizard hired another group of adventures to enter the complex and to retrieve the mechanical heart of a Gnomish automaton. The party entered the complex and discovered that the automaton survives and has been building lesser automatons. The party attepted to slay the automaton, but failed. They discovered that they were also unable to leave due to the mechanical locks. They've been stuck inside for around a month, trying to survive.
The party has set traps and barricaded a room for them to hide in.
Wandering Monster List:
| d6 | Encounter |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | NPC Party (or Empty) |
| 3 | Clockwork cavalier d4 |
| 4 | Copper Cobra d6 |
| 5 | Gelatinous Cube |
| 6 | Gelatinous Cube (Dead) |